Defrauded

An Alabama man pleaded guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges in a kickback scheme that defrauded Japan's Mitsubishi International Corp. of $56 million, officials said. Joseph Smith, 47, of Anniston, Ala., pleaded guilty to charges that he plotted through his company to defraud Mitsubishi through buying and selling industrial carpet and Kevlar yarns, prosecutors said. Smith admitted that his Alabama firm, Sun Fibres Inc., included ''false representations and documents to induce Mitsubishi to disburse funds'' so that the company was defrauded of $56 million.

A New Smyrna Beach woman has been charged with stealing money from a bed-tax funded agency when she was the group's executive director. Nicole Carni, the former executive director of the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority, was charged with organized scheme to defraud, a third-degree felony. Carni turned herself in and posted a $5,000 bond late last night, the Office of State Attorney RJ Larizza said today. Her arrest warrant says she took more than $20,000 and used agency-funded contractors to fix up her home.

Sears Tire and Auto Centers defrauded customers who bought tire-balancing service out of $100 million - about a quarter of total sales for the service between 1989 and 1994, according to a suit. A class-action lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Tampa against Sears, Roebuck and Co., alleges widespread fraud in the sale of tire-balancing services, known as AccuBalance. The company failed to perform the service at least 30 percent of the time, according to Kevin Twigg, of Sarasota, who bought four tires from Sears with the AccuBalance service in late 1991.

Osceola County Sheriff's deputies have tacked on a new fraud charge on convicted-scammer Luz M. Perez for allegedly bilking a 56-year-old Clermont woman out of $5,000. Perez, 48, was extradited back to Osceola County on Thursday after being arrested in North Miami on Monday for a probation violation for her 2013 conviction of exploiting the elderly. Perez who faces one fraud and one grand theft charge is currently in Osceola County Jail on a $50,000. Deputies say Perez approached Maria Juarbe in March 2013 at a Publix on South Highway 27 in Clermont and asked if she spoke Spanish.

A Boston broker pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding 20 county and municipal pension plans in Massachusetts of more than $800,000, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston said. Carmen Elio, 57, of Osterville, Mass., pleaded guilty to two charges of federal mail fraud and agreed to plead guilty to a state conflict-of-interest charge. The U.S. Attorney's Office charged Elio, a former partner with Alex Brown & Sons, with engaging in a scheme to defraud the retirement funds by recommending that they purchase investment products from Aetna Life Insurance Co. Elio did not disclose that he and his company, Fanueil Hall Securities, received more than $1.8 million while working for Aetna Life, the office said.

ELIZABETH, N.J. -- A half-dozen illegal immigrants are suing the Salvation Army and two of its former local officials for consumer fraud, claiming the leaders took their money under false promises of helping them gain legal status. The lawsuit, filed Friday in state Superior Court, claims the Rev. Enoc Tito Sotelo told his mostly Hispanic congregation at Plainfield's Salvation Army church that he would help them become Americans if they each paid $4,000 and donated $500 to the church. Trish Pelligrini, a spokeswoman for the Salvation Army's New Jersey chapter, would not comment on the lawsuit.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Federal agents say they have broken up a scheme based in Canada that defrauded elderly victims across the United States out of more than $5 million by telling them they had won a lottery jackpot. Authorities have recovered $4.5 million from Israeli and Jordanian banks. Fifteen Canadians were arrested on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The scam involved callers telling elderly victims they had won a large cash prize in a Canadian lottery, but needed to prepay taxes before they could collect their winnings.

A federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit Friday that claims former TV evangelist Jim Bakker defrauded about 150,000 people who bought ''lifetime partnerships'' in his defunct religious empire. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge James McMillan of Charlotte, N.C., erred when he threw out the securities fraud claims. A jury should have considered the matter, the appeals court ruled. Harold Bender, a Bakker lawyer, called the appeals court ruling disappointing.

TAVARES -- A 26-year-old Leesburg woman was arrested Monday after authorities said she defrauded the assisted-living community Somerset on Lake Saunders of more than $40,000. Anne Marie Amedeo was charged with organized fraud and exploitation of the elderly. Police say Amedeo, who was a bookkeeper at Somerset, skimmed payments residents made to live at the community. Police said she defrauded the community of checks and cash totaling $44,741.61 during the course of a year.

An Orange County deputy sheriff was suspended without pay after he was jailed Friday on felony insurance-fraud charges, the Sheriff's Office said. The deputy, Waleed Albakri, 44, was originally arrested in October 2012 as part of an investigation by the Florida Division of Insurance Fraud. According to that agency, after a burglary at his home in September 2011, Albakri made false claims for a laptop and diamond ring to his renter's insurance. Investigators say Albakri altered a receipt to inflate the laptop's value and that a photo of the ring was shot months after the burglary.

The owners of Minneola-based Kingdom Builders Ministries have been charged with defrauding the state's Medicaid program out of almost $80,000. James Davis, 40, and Grisselle Davis, 52, are accused of billing Medicaid for services never rendered. The services at issue "are designed to link Medicaid recipients with a documented mental health condition to services in the community," according to the state Attorney General's Office. The Davises, who were arrested last week, are accused of billing for an entire family when only one member received services, and for unauthorized expenses.

Following are some of the incidents recently reported to area police agencies and the Lake County Sheriff's Office. This information was compiled from public records maintained by those agencies. The Police Log is published Thursdays in the Lake section. County James Street , 55000 block, near Astor, Nov. 3. Officers arrested a resident on a charge of simple domestic battery. Cumberland Circle , 800 block, near Minneola, Nov. 3. Officers arrested a resident on a charge of aggravated battery with great bodily harm.

Reinaldo Bezara was returning home to Orlando on New Year's Eve in 2008 when, to his great bewilderment, he was accosted by law enforcement at the airport. Authorities told him he was in the country illegally, gave him an immigration court summons and sent a shaken Bezara back to his Venezuelan immigrant family with the news they could be deported from the country they have called home for nearly a decade. He was confused and angry. After paying thousands of dollars to an Orlando woman to file the right paperwork, how was he still without legal status in the United States?

A mail carrier in Volusia County scammed more than a dozen New Smyrna Beach residents on his route out of cash, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement Thursday, in a fraud scheme dating back at least to 2010. According to sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught, 67-year-old Randell Holley made a habit of showing up at residents' homes in "the middle of the night while wearing his postal uniform or loudly proclaiming that he was their mailman. " "He would say that there was an emergency, usually involving a broken down vehicle that needed to be towed," Haught said.

A Kissimmee couple who stole nearly $2.9 million from elderly clients pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday and could be sentenced to 10 years in prison each. Linda Littlefield, a disbarred attorney also known as Linda Vasquez, and her former husband, Ross Littlefield, stole nearly $2.9 million from elderly clients and used the money to buy real estate and cars and prop up their other businesses. Between 2007 and 2010, the Littlefields took more than $4.7 million from 26 clients, then began transferring money to accounts for their personal use. Their business, with an office in downtown Kissimmee, was called JNN Foundation.

A division of Rockwell International agreed Tuesday to pay $1.4 million and permit the federal government to lecture employees about honesty to settle a fraud case involving space shuttle work. Prosecutors said they would drop charges that Rockwell's Collins Commercial Avionics Division in Cedar Rapids, which makes and repairs shuttle flight instruments, had defrauded NASA by altering timecards for work done on the shuttle program. In October 1991, the government alleged the company defrauded NASA of an unspecified amount during a period ending August 1987.

An attorney was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison for a scheme to obtain multimillion-dollar land loans for developments that never were completed.Ellis E. Neder Jr., 49, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger to pay the banks he defrauded restitution of $25 million.Neder was found guilty in May on financial institution fraud and racketeering charges.During a 2 1/2-month trial, the jury heard evidence of a scheme orchestrated by Neder that defrauded banks, savings and loans, and several other lenders in land acquisition and development loans totaling $40 million.

The president of a Central Florida construction company who has been the target of multiple lawsuits admitted in a federal plea agreement to obtaining more than $2.5 million from investors in a Ponzi scheme. Tina Mangiardi of TLM Design and Construction admitted she convinced people to invest large amounts of money in a "bid bond" investment and promised the return of the initial investment, bonus money and other payments with rates as much as 100 percent. But authorities said the construction projects Mangiardi allegedly bid on never existed.